Sunday, February 11, 2007

impeach...impeach...impeach

Here's a threefold bitchfest from me to you (whoever "you" are). My targets aren't unusual...the media, gutless politicians afraid to stand up in the face of criminal corruption, and public indifference (and our lack of desire to hold the people we elect accountable for either not doing or abusing the positions they hold).

By any serious standard of journalism, impeachment should be in the news right now. This illustrates the worst problem with our media. It's not how they cover stories. It's how they do not cover stories.

A Newsweek poll a while back said that 51 percent of Americans want Bush impeached and 44 percent do not. That's about double the support there was for impeaching Clinton when it was in the news every single day.

It is a relatively short journey to see failure to demand impeachment as a moral failure. If we go into the next presidency with the next president free to launch wars on the basis of lies, torture, murder, detain without charge, spy without warrant, rewrite laws with signing statements, hide the workings of our government, disobey laws on his or her whim ... I don't care what party he or she is from, I don't care if it's Nelson Mandela, you don't give that power to a human being. And that's what we're doing if we fail to impeach Bush and Cheney.

"The President is mischaracterizing U.S. action vis-à-vis Iran. In fact, the U.S. is already engaged in offensive and provocative acts against Iran. The President's strategy, by portraying our involvement as only being on the defensive, is laying out the groundwork for him to attack Iran and bypass authorization by Congress," Kucinich said.

The Washington Post article stated: ‘A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy. “This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political.” The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there.’

Kucinich said, "The White House spin machine is at it again: this time providing justification for a new war - a war against Iran." Kucinich pointed out that while the term 'officials' is mentioned 21 times in the Post article - not once are the officials identified by name.

In his January 10 address to the nation, President Bush asserted that succeeding in Iraq begins with addressing Iran and Syria. "Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We'll interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq," Bush said.

"The Washington Post is quoting strategically placed Administration sources who are providing justification for an attack against Iran," Kucinich said. "This new twist on Iran, a country this Administration refuses to have free and open diplomatic talks with, is stating the Administration's case for war."

"The degree to which this President continues to take steps to go to war against Iran without consulting with the full Congress is the degree to which he is increasingly putting himself in jeopardy of an impeachment proceeding," Kucinich said.

I’m a fan of Dennis Kucinich, but I’m wondering if he’s being a little disingenuous here. It’s one thing to start throwing the word “impeachment” around in an effort to show you’re tough or at least just pissed off. If Kucinich is sincere, why hasn’t he filed impeachment papers? It’s already been done at least once since this past November’s elections…

As some people learned from the minimal and abusive media coverage, on December 8, 2006, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney introduced Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush, making him the 10th president of the United States to face such action. Of course, McKinney was on her way out of office and thus more willing to challenge the Democratic Party leadership by upholding basic Constitutional principles.

Fewer people are aware that Congresswoman McKinney on December 27, 2006, entered into the Congressional Record extended remarks on impeachment that merit our close attention. Why would she do such a thing on her way out the door with no chance of reintroducing her bill in the new Congress? For one thing, she clearly would agree with the response Congressman John Conyers gave to Lewis Lapham when asked what he thought the point was of publishing a lengthy report laying out evidence of Bush's impeachable offenses. Conyers' response was: "to take away the excuse that we didn't know."

Here is McKinney's case for impeachment and for the history books, a case that says to historians, "Look, I knew what needed to be done, and I failed for years but I admitted it on my last day," but a case that says to us: "Here is your mission: awaken currently serving Congress members to this case or kiss your democracy goodbye."

Some of the more noteworthy reasons for impeachment, based on McKinney’s remarks…

I. FAILURE TO ENSURE THE LAWS ARE FAITHFULLY EXECUTED

Under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution of the United States of America, the President has a duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." George Walker Bush, during his tenure as President of the United States, has repeatedly violated the letter and spirit of laws and rules of criminal procedure used by civilian and military courts, and has violated or ignored regulatory codes and practices that carry out the law, has contravened the laws governing agencies of the executive and the purposes of these agencies, and in conducting the foreign affairs of the United States of America has proceeded in flagrant violation of the core body of international laws, to which the United States of America is bound by treaty.

With respect to domestic law, this conduct has included one or more of the following:

(1) Self-Exemption from Laws upon Signing. Since assuming the office of President of the United States, George Walker Bush has attached signing statements to more than one hundred bills before signing them, within which he has made over eight hundred challenges to provisions of laws passed by Congress, a figure that exceeds the total number of such challenges by all previous presidents combined, and has used this practice to exempt himself, as President of the United States, from enforcing or from being held accountable to provisions of the said laws.

(2) Suspension of Basic Legal Proceedings. In dereliction of his duty to uphold the law, George Walker Bush has systematically violated basic legal and criminal procedures that require any search, seizure, arrest or detention to be non-discriminatory, based on probable cause and sufficient evidence to warrant a stated charge, that provide access to legal counsel, arraignment and the option of bail within a period of days, and that require reasonable and non-coercive interrogations, rights of silence, as well as privy communications with counsel…By ordering mass arrests and indefinite detentions based on indiscriminate profiling of specific populations, George Walker Bush has also systematically violated laws prohibiting harmful extraditions, secret arrest and custody, and denial of defined and legal periods of detention or incarceration.

With respect to international law, this conduct has included one or more of the following:

(3) Promoting Illegal War. In direct violation of Articles 41 and 42 of the United Nations Charter, a treaty ratified by the United States Senate in 1945 and therefore the supreme law of the land as according to Article VI of the Constitution, George Walker Bush has advanced and executed a policy based on so-called pre-emptive or preventive war, whereby the United States of America claims the right to unilaterally assault, invade or occupy other nations without first engaging in collective measures with other member states of the United Nations or first gaining the prior assent of the United Nations Security Council, and whereas George Walker Bush did apply this doctrine by launching a war of aggression…

(4) Promoting Torture. In direct violation of…legal memoranda and alterations to regulations such as the Army Field Manual, to undermine the Federal Torture Statute; the Third Geneva Convention banning torture and abuse of Prisoners of War, as well as non-combatants and unarmed ("enemy") combatants held in detention; and…the Fourth Geneva Convention, which expressly prohibit not merely torture but physical abuse of any kind being inflicted upon…"those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals," this language being written as a precaution against and in anticipation of alternate definitions of torture, these declarations and treaties being ratified by the United States Senate and therefore the supreme law of the land as according to Article VI of the Constitution, George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, has condoned and presided over a vast expansion of the use of torture against unarmed combatants and civilian non-combatants, both foreign and domestic, detained or kidnapped by forces or agents of the United States… By signing a legal memorandum on February 7, 2002 (declassified on June 17, 2004), in which he wrote that "The war on terror ushers in a new paradigm," one which requires "new thinking in the law of war," and decreeing that, contrary to all past military practices of an official nature, the United States would no longer be constrained by the laws of war presently in force in its treatment of those captured during its invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and subsequently detained, a legal opinion which the Supreme Court struck down on June 29, 2006 (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld) by its ruling that the Third Geneva Convention did apply to detainees in the custody of the United States, George Walker Bush, President of the United States, by his concerted efforts to undermine any legal limits on the use of torture by United States personnel, did commit and was guilty of high crimes against the United States of America.

(5) Promoting Kidnappings and Renditions for Illegal Torture. In direct violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture… which states that "No State party shall expel, return or extradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture," and the Fourth Geneva Convention…the said conventions having been ratified by the United States Senate and therefore the supreme law of the land as according to Article VI of the Constitution, George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, did sign, on September 17, 2001, an executive order (still classified) granting unilateral authority to the Central Intelligence Agency to render detainees to countries where torture is routinely practiced for the express purpose of interrogation, thereby subverting an established program of rendering detainees to justice by bringing them to the United States or to a country in which they were wanted to face criminal charges in a court of law. And whereas the Central Intelligence Agency did thereafter carry out this order not only by rendering hundreds of detainees to countries where they were subsequently tortured, but also in many cases first illegally kidnapping the detainees, and did subsequently establish secret detention centers, operating outside any known laws, for the express purpose of circumventing all legal protections to which the said detainees were entitled under international law.

(6) Use of Illegal Weapons. In violation of multiple and diverse tenets of international law, George Walker Bush, as President of the United States, has authorized or sanctioned the use of illegal weapons, including but not limited to the following:

(a) land mines, deployed by United States forces in Afghanistan and Iraq…which are…illegal under Geneva Conventions…which states that it is a war crime to launch "an indiscriminate attack affecting the civilian population in the knowledge that such an attack will cause an excessive loss of life or injury to civilians…"

(b) cluster bombs, including those which upon explosion project lethal plastic fragments not detectable by X-ray, deployed by United States forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, which leave unexploded ordnance known to maim and kill innocent civilians and which are therefore also illegal under Geneva Conventions…which bans "the use of any weapon the primary effect of which is to injure by fragments which in the human body escape detection by X-rays…"

(c) depleted uranium munitions, being radiological weapons used extensively by United States Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, in violation of Geneva Conventions…which prohibit the use of "projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering" or weapons "which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment" or damage to "the health or survival of the population," and which have been classified as "weapons of mass destruction" by the United Nations Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities;

(d) napalm, a weapon widely used in Vietnam, an upgraded kerosene-based version of which has more recently been used by United States forces in Iraq…in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention…which expressly prohibits "Munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm through the toxic properties" of the device when used as a weapon;

(e) white phosphorous, which Defense Department spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Venable confirmed on November 15, 2005 was deployed "as an incendiary weapon" in urban areas of Fallujah, Iraq, where there were high concentrations of civilians…making the said deployment of white phosphorous a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention…

(f) BLU-82B/C-130 "daisy cutter" bombs, being massive incendiary bombs deployed by United States forces in Afghanistan, and which upon detonation create a firestorm the size of five football fields or greater, and a vacuum pressure capable of collapsing internal organs, in violation of Geneva Conventions…which expressly forbid such indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and the environment;

II. ABUSE OF OFFICE AND OF EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE

…George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States, has consistently demonstrated disregard for (the oath of the office of the Presidency)…by obstructing and hindering the work of investigative bodies, by seeking to expand the scope of the powers of his office, by failing to ensure a swift response to a natural disaster where lives were in the balance, and by failing to appoint competent officials or to hold those whom he appoints or those to whom the government grants contracts accountable in cases of dereliction of duty, abuse and outright fraud.

(1) Obstructing Inquiry and Detection. In an effort to conceal…high crimes and misdemeanors…George Walker Bush, in his conduct as President of the United States of America, has presided over…an administration which actively interferes with the free flow of information by manipulating the press and frustrating its ability to provide an oversight function by being actively hostile to questioning from the press, by placing imposters posing as agents of the press at press conferences, by threatening reporters with prosecution under espionage laws, and by purchasing television segments and placing newspaper stories falsely posing as unbiased reporting in an effort to promote Administration policies… This Administration has also refused to provide key information to Congressional investigations, and to prosecutors investigating the outing of a Central Intelligence Agency Officer in an apparent act of retribution, or to actively pursue the identity of the guilty informant, despite the President's public pledge to fire the guilty party once discovered, and even after one Administration official was charged in the case with obstruction of justice. George Walker Bush has abused his office by consistently invoking executive privilege in order to shelter his office and his appointees from both Congressional oversight and judicial accountability.

(2) Replacing the Veto with Signing Statements. By declining to veto even one bill, and instead attaching signing statements challenging hundreds of laws passed by Congress, thereby seeking to exempt the executive branch from accountability to said laws…George Walker Bush has subverted the very nature of his office by seeking to add to his office extraordinary and unconstitutional powers and privileges.

III. FAILURE TO PRESERVE, PROTECT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION

…George Walker Bush, in his conduct while President of the United States has…demonstrated a pattern of disregard or contempt for the Constitution itself, as he clearly demonstrated in November 2005 when he shouted at a group of Republican lawmakers, "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a [expletive] piece of paper!"

This conduct has included one or more of the following:

(1) Suspension of Due Process. In direct dereliction of his duty to defend the Constitution, George Walker Bush has systematically deprived citizens and residents of the United States of their constitutional rights to due process under the law, by sanctioning or ordering, at the discretion of the executive, their detention without charge and without trial, a fundamental right to which they are entitled under habeas corpus and the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights; by denying the right to a fair and speedy trial and blocking access to counsel for the defense, both of which are rights guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment in the Bill of Rights; by denying those so illegally detained the opportunity to appear before a judicial officer that they might challenge the legal grounds of their detention; by sanctioning and ordering mass arrests and detentions which inevitably involve all of the above named abuses; and by refusing to disclose the identities and locations of those detained.

(2) Unreasonable Searches and Seizures. In violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, George Walker Bush did clandestinely direct the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security to conduct electronic surveillance, including a new form of spying using sophisticated software to track internet usage, of citizens of the United States on U.S. soil without seeking to obtain, before or after, a judicial warrant, including spying on groups and individuals who had committed no illegal acts, involving penetration, entrapment and provocation…

(3) Non-Cooperation with Congress. In derogation of the legislative functions of the Congress, granted under…the Constitution, and the implied power to see that the laws made by Congress are faithfully executed, George Walker Bush, in his conduct as President of the United States, has engaged in a consistent pattern of obstructing and frustrating Congressional investigations. George Walker Bush opposed and delayed the formation of a commission to investigate the attacks of September 11, 2001, and once it was formed, refused to turn over key documents and information in compliance with subpoenas, and also sought and gained exemption from testifying under oath for all but one top administration official (Condoleezza Rice). He refused requests from the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina and requests from the 9/11 Commission to turn over key documents and information. Under his administration the Justice Department made it official policy to refuse cooperation with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, to refuse the release of records or testimony, central to informing government decisions, to re-classify previously unclassified records and to withhold even non-secret documents. These actions severely restrict the ability of the people and their representatives in Congress seeking to hold government officials accountable for their decisions to have access to a record of how official decisions were reached, or even to know what the official polices are. Wherefore, George Walker Bush, by obstructing the work of the Congress, did commit and was guilty of high misdemeanors against the United States of America.

In direct dereliction of his duty to defend the Constitution, George Walker Bush has, during his tenure as President of the United States of America, sanctioned the establishment of a parallel legal system operating outside the scope of the Constitution under which the participants would not be bound by due process or basic rights of the accused to speedy and fair trials, access to counsel, or even the right to know the charges and evidence against them, by replacing these measures with a new form of law involving: secret and indefinite detention without trial or hearing; renditions to other countries outside the reach of law and justice; the use of military tribunals to replace civilian courts; detentions outside normal writ of habeas rules and without access to effective counsel, unmonitored conversations or judicial attention and review; exclusion of the accused from portions of the trial and from access to evidence used against them; acceptance of hearsay, including testimony gained under torture or duress; and a lack of independent judiciary or appeal of conviction. An unknown number of individuals, many of whose names the Administration has refused to release, have already been held in undisclosed locations or secret prisons, and mass arrests have been accompanied by deportations. By failing to conduct timely status review hearings, as required under Article 5 of the Geneva Convention, the Bush Administration has made it effectively impossible to determine the status and the rights of those held in secret detention. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that the denial of rights under the Geneva Accords is illegal [Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld], new proposals from the Bush Administration expand the definition of those who can be detained as "enemy combatants" as no longer limited to aliens abroad, and assert that neither the Uniform Code of Military Justice alone, nor federal criminal procedures will guide the functions of these new courts. George Walker Bush, as President of the United States of America, in defiance the Supreme Court, and in keeping with a pattern of conduct seeking to exempt himself from its rulings and from constitutional law, did commit violations of domestic law and was guilty of war crimes.

In all of this, George Walker Bush has sought to arrogate unprecedented power to his executive office and to undermine the system of checks and balances established by the Founders, by using war and national emergency as the basis for his claims in support of a unitary presidency.

With all the evidence spelled out so clearly and in such great detail…with public support of impeachment clearly available to the members of Congress…what exactly will it take for someone – anyone – in a position of congressional authority to formally and effectively file articles of impeachment against the president and members of his administration, all of whom are unquestionably as guilty as he in carrying out both war crimes and failure to act according to the responsibilities the president took an oath to uphold when he was sworn in?

Why is no one in the media pressing the question of impeachment amongst the Washington politicians whose activities are supposed to be under constant investigation by the media in general?

Our federal officeholders are abusing their positions. The media as a whole are not performing the basic functions of their positions.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, while admittedly not specifically covering a story they thought could possibly lead to impeachment, criminal charges, and ultimately the resignation of the President of the United States, had a hell of a lot less to work with at the time than is available now.

So why has a serious movement to file Articles of Impeachment not taken place to this point? That it hasn’t is a despicable dereliction of duty on the part of all groups involved. It’s not that I have a partisan beef to rail about here. I’m just completely ashamed by the utter lack of dedication to the democratic principles we all have a duty to police.